DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
                  COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT

           Comp 290-063 Collaborative Systems
     3.0 Credit Hours; meets MW 11:00-12:15 SN 325

             Instructor: Dr. Prasun Dewan

     Current operating  systems,  user-interface  tools  and
transaction-systems have not been designed to support colla-
borative applications.  In this  course,  we  will  look  at
principles  and  mechanisms  required  to build systems that
support collaboration  among  distributed  users.   We  will
first  look  at some of the important research collaborative
applications that have been developed  recently.   Then,  in
the  main part of the course, we will study advanced mechan-
isms for supporting shared data,  persistence,  interprocess
communication,    access   control,   concurrency   control,
undo/redo, recovery, and multimedia.  In particular, we will
look  at shared- memory, variables, objects, views, windows,
and  widgets;  persistent-  object  and  hypertext  systems;
causal  multicast/broadcast, remote procedure call, and mes-
sage servers; capability- and inheritance- based access con-
trol;   cooperative   and   nested  transactions;  multiuser
undo/redo models; and multimedia- toolkits and network  pro-
tocols.   Students  will  do  design and/or programming pro-
jects.  They  will  be  encouraged  to  work  in  teams  and
integrate  their  projects with other class projects.  There
will be no exams-instead students will give project  reports
and/or demonstrations.  They will also be expected to parti-
cipate in class discussions.